The following abbreviations are herewith defined, at least some of which are referred to in the following description associated with the prior art and the present invention.
CTIComputer Telephony IntegrationDTMFDual Tone Multi-FrequencyGUIGraphical User InterfaceHTTPHyper Text Transfer ProtocolIDIdentificationIMInstant MessagingIPInternet ProtocolIVRInteractive Voice ResponsePBXPrivate Branch ExchangeURLUniform Resource LocatorVCSVoice Communications SystemXMLExtensible Markup Language
Call centers provide vital communication links between consumers and businesses. In present call center systems, a consumer places a telephone call via the standard public telephone network to the main toll-free number of the call center, and then interacts with an IVR system that acts to deduce the caller's intent. In IVR implementations based on DTMF, a caller may have to progress through a chained series of different DTMF menus to specify his or her intent. The callers often become frustrated with this slow and cumbersome process, only to discover that in their case, as in many cases, there is actually no DTMF menu item that correctly matches their intent. In some cases, the caller may opt-out by depressing the “O” key to speak with a call center human operator so they can more quickly and accurately specify his or her intent but the call center operator often has to spend more time on these types of calls thus incurring additional call center expense. In other cases, the caller may become frustrated, discontinue the call, and not purchase additional products from this company because of the poor level of customer service and support.
As telephony networks evolve from conventional circuit-switched public telephone networks to packet-switched voice and data IP-based networks, new forms of call centers based on voice/data convergence will emerge. For instance, a caller (end-user) could use a web client (computer) to interact with a call center agent by using instant messenger technology, including for example Yahoo! Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger. In addition, Microsoft Corporation has introduced a service known as Microsoft NetMeeting® which provides online conferencing and collaboration sessions across the Internet which could be used to enable a caller (end-user) to use their web client (computer) to interact with a call center agent. Although these technologies enable a caller (end-user) to interact with a call center agent they still have drawbacks such as for example with the Microsoft NetMeeting® the end-user would need to install proprietary software on their computer or mobile device before communicating with the call center agent. This is not desirable. Accordingly, there is a need for a new call center which does not suffer from this drawback while still enabling a caller (end-user) to use the converging voice/data technologies to interact with a call center agent. This need and other needs are satisfied by a real-time collaboration center and method of the present invention.